Laura showed me her pay-slip, the hours that she had put in. Said she was flush with cash.
I smiled, a change from the debt she had been in.
I checked my bank balance on the day her rent was due to Husband and me. The rent money had not been paid. That all too familiar sick feeling scraped the lining of my stomach.
Give her chance. I did not mention the debt to Husband for a couple of days. I kept checking the account instead: A big fat zero whilst my anxiety rose a million fold.
I had to bring this issue of the missing rent money to Husband. He was livid. Said, ‘Nobody is going to take the piss out of me.’
I phoned Laura, ‘Why haven’t you paid your rent?’
‘Sorry, I haven’t got it,’ she said. ‘I’ve spent it.’
The rent was set for automatic payment, the day after her salary was paid.
‘You’ve just been paid. In fact, you shoved your pay-slip in my face. You have the money.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
I relayed this conversation to Husband, verbatim.
‘She can get out of that house. She can go if she is not paying rent.’ End of conversation, he was serious.
I could have cried, a lovely house, for my lovely daughter. Why did she not value that house, pay her rent, a subsidised rent, easily affordable for someone who could manage their money? What was happening to her life? What would happen to her future?
I worried about my daughter, a new worry to add to old.
addictchild 